--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Let me add that <bruges> can be compared with the Greek form
<pHruges>, with Macedonian or indeed Phrygian phonetics (*bH >
Mac./Phr. b : Gk. pH). There is therefore some justification for the
hypothesis that the Bryges of the East Balkans were ethnonymically
(and perhaps also in other ways, see Herodotus) related to the
Phrygians of Asia Minor, but the Celtic connection is pure fantasy,
as Chris points out.
>
Actually, I never meant to even imply that Phrygian was a Celtic
language. I believe that the original Bryges were assimilated by
locals in northern Greece and Albania. I've read mentioned theories
of one or two IE languages in the Balkans that were gone by the
historic period. In the north, some speculation is that Venetian was
part of language group that once included Pannonia and Croatia before
the Celtic and Illyrian expansions. It may have been a language group
intermediate between Italic and Celtic. Some have also suggested that
in the south that another group was squeezed out between the
Thracians and Illyrians. The Phrygian language may have been based on
this group, as could have been Macedonian, Paeonian, and other groups
in the Vardar-Morava corridor.
cas